Wireless networks are ubiquitous in many countries, with numerous devices operated in numerous cells. Cells may be thought of as coverage areas served by a base station or a combination of base stations that may be operating in coordination with one another. A cell may serve devices that are directly operated by users to communicate with other users and to receive and transfer data. A cell may also support machine type communication (MTC) devices. Such devices are often designed to be low cost, low power devices and may exist in large numbers. MTC devices may be dormant for long periods and may become active in order to deliver information about natural phenomena such as weather, and a low-power, low-cost design makes it easier to deploy as many such devices as may be desired.
In order to reduce costs, low-cost MTC devices may be designed to have only one receive antenna. Such a design contrasts to many other devices having at least two antennas. Many examples of such devices are operated according to third generation partnership project (3GPP) standards and extension such as long term evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced (LTE-A). The use of only one receive antenna in an MTC device will reduce the range in the downlink of the device. Furthermore, it is desirable to extend LTE coverage into locations which may exhibit poor radio conditions in locations where MTC devices might be installed—for example, in the basement of a building. Therefore, for 3GPP and 3GPP LTE and LTE-A devices, techniques have been defined to allow for extended coverage. To gain initial access, an MTC device (known as an MTC user equipment or UE) to transmit on a random access channel RACH of a cell. The cell may be represented as a base station or eNodeB (eNB). The initial transmission is of a physical random access preamble. For extended coverage initial access, the MTC UE transmits a (PRACH) and may transmit a PRACH preamble at high power for a long time (up to hundreds of subframes) before it finally gains access.